Fairhope council votes to pay $110,000 to complete veterans memorial

The Fairhope council voted Monday to pay the remaining expenses of erecting a veterans memorial at Henry George Park, which overlooks Mobile Bay and the city pier. This rendering was provided by Fairhope sculptor Steven Spears, who designed the statues.

FAIRHOPE, Alabama -- After volunteers spent the past six years struggling to raise funds to build a veterans memorial near the municipal pier, the City Council voted Monday to donate $110,000 to complete the project.

"It all happened very fast, much faster than I expected," Joe Birindelli with the Fairhope Veterans Memorial Committee said Tuesday. Birindelli said he spoke to the Financial Advisory Committee before Monday’s meeting about the donation.

Then, about an hour later, Councilman Dan Stankoski made a motion for immediate consideration to give $58,000 to the memorial group up-front, and allow the group to bill the city for another $52,000. The item passed unanimously.

The memorial’s design was conceptualized by Birindelli’s wife, Sissy Scott. The sculptor is Stephen Spears, a successful artist who lives in Fairhope.

The committee received its nonprofit status in 2007, so fundraising for the monument began "right at the worst possible time, when the bottom fell out of the economy," Birindelli said.

The nation’s large foundations and trusts — themselves facing fewer donations — turned down the committee’s appeals for money, he said.

The memorial will consist of two bronze statues set on raised marble platforms with sheets of water flowing under their feet and down into a surrounding pool with back-lit glass blocks.

One figure is that of a grieving woman clutching a folded American flag, standing over a simple inscription, "on behalf of a grateful nation."

The other statue is of a returning soldier down on one knee, holding his young son and handing an American flag to him.

The committee’s contract with Spears is broken into five parts, and through private donations of more than $100,000 the first three parts have already been paid, he said.

The $58,000 given by the council Monday night will pay the remaining balance and allow Spears to have his clay sculptures cast in bronze at a foundry in Colorado, Birindelli said.

The remaining $52,000 will pay to build the monument’s base, with a pool and lighting, at Henry George Park, which overlooks Mobile Bay and the city pier. Birindelli said he did not know when the monument will be completed.

"We hope by Veterans Day," which is in November, Birindelli said. "It depends on the foundry’s schedule and a lot of other things."

In other business Monday, the council

Heard criticism from Councilman Mike Ford, chairman of the city’s garbage committee, of City Council President Lonnie Mixon’s proposal two weeks ago to offer residents a year of free garbage and recycling service.

If enacted, the fee cancellation would cost the city about $1.38 million, according to City Treasurer Nancy Wilson.

Ford talked for about 10 minutes on the issue Monday, repeating a few times that he felt it was a "re-election ploy" by Mixon. Afterward, Mixon responded that:

"I haven’t been in politics as long as you and Mayor Kant. Maybe old-school politicians like you can think like that, but I don’t," Mixon said. "Really, it doesn’t warrant a response, something that low."

Approved hiring Daniel Rada, a reserve police officer for the past three years, as a full-time police officer at a pay rate of $18.72 per hour, with an increase to $24.86 after a year of service.